Moving back to San Francisco

When we were moving from Marin to the Mission District in July and I was collecting boxes from other families on my mother’s group list serve, everyone was perplexed when I said we were coming back into San Francisco after a year in the suburbs.

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We keep their number on speed dial.

“Aren’t you supposed to go the other way?” asked one dad.

Yes normally. But in our case, the suburbs just weren’t the right fit. Yes, the police will track down a “stolen” stroller in the middle of the night. And I loved being able ride out my door onto a bike path along the water. We became a hiking family. And the parking, the parking!! I had a parking space right in front of my house. And I have to admit, it was great when I had something specific in mind to buy and could pull right in front of a store and park. In the city, I sometimes give up on the idea of getting something from a particular store after circling and circling. Few things are worth dredging up meter change and dragging a preschooler 10 blocks.

When I first started writing this suburbs blog a year ago, I was coming from the other side. We had just moved to an apartment in Strawberry Village (an unincorporated area of Marin near Mill Valley) after living 11 years in a rent-controlled apartment in Hayes Valley. Yes, Hayes Valley is one of the new hip destinations with its trendy breakfast joints and high end baby boutiques but there are pockets of homelessness with hypodermic needles and used condoms lying around. We lived in one of those alleys — where I once sat in the car waiting for my husband to send out the babysitter while pretending not to notice a sexual “transaction” going on in the cab of a truck parked next to my apartment.

We had been broken into twice in the middle of the night while we were home — scaring me to the point where I pulled out the baby monitor again because I was so nervous that I wouldn’t be able to hear if someone got into our son’s bedroom. We had battled rats in our kitchen and living room (ones so big that the cat sat by idly as a rat perched on its hind legs on his dish munching cat food). We endured homeless people defecating on our doorsteps. We saw our insurance rates rocket as we filed claim after claim for an endless string of day and night-time car break-ins. And we suffered through the noise and pollution of a muffler shop across the alley (although certainly our beloved mechanics there made it convenient especially with the problems of our 1995 beater).

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The FasTrak bill was brutal.

After one of my best friends — who has a son the same age as Cash — moved to a quiet San Rafael neighborhood with a yard and safe and clean sidewalks, I was jealous. The turning point for me was when I walked home from work and left her a message saying, “You are probably sitting in the sun by the pool and it is cold and overcast here — and oh, I just stepped over a pile of raw chicken.”

So when we decided that we had to get out of our apartment to maintain our sanity and couldn’t find anything even remotely better for double our rent, we turned to Marin. We found a safe, tree shaded apartment with a patio and pool at a decent rent and plunged.

At first we were enamored. Cash had a little friend next door for impromptu play dates. We’d call friends and tell them about the great restaurants at nearby Strawberry Village. We got a third wheel bicycle attachment for Cash and biked to Tiburon or Sausalito every weekend. We enjoyed the jumpy houses and clowns at the Thursday night farmer’s market in downtown San Rafael. We were able to catch a movie without arriving hours before to get tickets.

Our friends teased us because we gushed so much about how much we liked it.

But cracks soon started to appear in our suburban dream. Working and going to school in the city, we didn’t have many friends in Marin. Many of our city friends were deterred by the bridge from visiting unless it was planned way out in advance. And friends without cars never visited. Our once walking commutes suddenly became an hour in the car. Our car started to have even more problems. Our FasTrak account ballooned with the commute and because my husband often had to go back into the city at night or weekends for music rehearsals and gigs. When gas prices hit $4 a gallon, we started to rethink our decision. And when we decided to have a second child, we realized we would probably need a second car to make it work if we lived in the suburbs. We decided that the costs of commuting and a second car would be about as much as the extra rent we’d have to pay in San Francisco. And I was so tired of the commute (getting across the Golden Gate Bridge was a breeze but getting through the city took forever), that I started having a physical reaction every time we turned on to Park Presidio.

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Worth the hassle.

I’ll admit that we have a bit of a unique situation because my husband is a teacher and our son goes to his school. One colleague at the Chronicle said, “The only reason to move to the suburbs is for the schools,” and thankfully we don’t have to worry about that. And while his statement clearly does not apply to everyone, it fit us. It may have been different if we had been able to afford a house in the suburbs on a quiet street with space for our children to run around with freedom. I crave the freedom I had as a child for my children. But we didn’t have that anyway in Marin. The pool was great but it was always a little too cold for me anyway and it meant that I had to keep an eagle eye out and could never let Cash run around the apartment’s yard alone.

And in the city in our new Mission District apartment, we live on a tree-lined street. We have an incredible fenced yard that is completely kid safe. A classmate of Cash’s lives close enough that the boys could string a tin can telephone between their windows like I did when I was a kid. Nearby Dolores Park is like a community backyard. There are outdoor movies, festivals and concerts there constantly. My favorite taqueria is just a few blocks away. The library, and several bookstores and storefront art spaces are within a short walk. We can still drive to Marin to bike or hike when we want. And it is almost always sunny, even when the fog rolls in over much of the rest of the city.

Sure parking is a bitch, but who needs a car in the city — now that we can all walk to school and work and have a half a dozen friends within blocks.

I’m sure I’ll come across another pile of raw chicken or the equivalent soon enough. But this time, I’ll just step right over and keep going, happy to be back in the city.